


Old Habits

by oshare_banchou



Series: I Make My Own Luck [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Humor, M/M, Meallán, Saoirse Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oshare_banchou/pseuds/oshare_banchou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris learns to appreciate precisely what people mean when they say Hawke takes after his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Habits

     Hawke and Fenris are huddled in front of the fireplace in the Hawke Estate, surrounded by a scattering of books and papers and with a bottle of red wine close at hand. The wine and the roaring fire help take the edge off the cold, but it is Meallán’s gratuitous body heat at their backs that does the most to combat the chill of a snowy winter’s night.

      Hawke flips to a ribbon-marked page of the thick tome perched in his lap. “Let’s start with this section,” he says, pointing to a paragraph headed by a gaudily illuminated capital letter.

     While the book’s binding is faded and frayed, the pages are practically pristine—evidence of the long years it has whiled away on nobles’ dusty bookshelves, curated for display but seldom referenced. Hawke had leveraged the book’s ragged outward appearance to his advantage at the time of purchase, citing its sorry condition and throwing in a winsome smile to successfully haggle a good fifty silver off the merchant’s original asking price.

     Hawke leans over to pass the book to Fenris, keeping one finger primed on the page to mark their place. “The syntax gets even more convoluted than usual toward the end, and some of the names are real head-scratchers—hell, I had to flip through a good half-dozen books to look some of them up earlier—but I know you love a challenge. And nothing says ‘riveting read’ quite like _The Complete Register of_ _Official Chantry-Sanctioned Feastdays and Festivals_ , am I right?”

     No response is forthcoming, and Hawke finally looks up from the book to glance over at Fenris—whose gaze is trained not on the book or even on Hawke, but over his right shoulder, scanning the entryway and the foyer beyond from beneath tense, knitted brows.

     Hawke leans forward and peers around Fenris, eager to get a look at whatever has him so completely captivated. As expected, the foyer is empty, with nary an intriguing shiny object in sight. Hawke immediately catches on.

     “You’re doing it again,” he says, heaving a weary sigh for dramatic effect.

     “Doing what?” Fenris repeats absently, finally swiveling around to grace Hawke with his attention once more.

     “Doing _that_.” Hawke clarifies this vague statement with a pointed gesture at the decidedly deserted foyer. “There’s nothing there, you know.”

     “I thought I heard something,” comes the brusque reply. Fenris crosses his arms, digging in for an uphill battle. “It never hurts to be cautious, Hawke.”

     Hawke raises an eyebrow, feigning offense. “What, you think I can’t defend myself?”

     Meallán whines, sensing tension between them, but a hint of a knowing smile eventually cracks the cool veneer of Fenris’s composure. “No, quite the contrary, in fact—as many a skewered slaver or raider-turned-pincushion can attest,” he allows, willing to give a little ground in this instance.

     Still, he promptly rallies, and the smile soon falls to steely practicality, the product of many years spent with his luck running in the red. “But the ability to defend oneself makes little difference to a poison-tipped dagger lodged between the ribs.”

     A mischievous gleam lights in Hawke’s eyes, and Fenris is almost—but not _quite_ —quick enough to forestall the inevitable.

     “Ah, yes,” Hawke muses sagely. “I see your _point_.”

     Fenris groans in exasperation, but the sound is drowned out by Hawke _giggling_ at his own joke and Meallán howling in approval.

     “At least _someone_ around here appreciates my sense of humor,” Hawke says to Meallán, and he rewards the mabari for his loyalty with a vigorous scratch behind the ears.

     “You call that a ‘sense of humor’?” Fenris scoffs.

     Hawke laughs, bright and open, the sound mimicking the tempo of the crackling blaze of the fire. “You have my old man to thank for that. What can I say? I learned from the best.”

     “My respect for the rest of your family grows by the day.”

     “For putting up with Father and me? Yes, they probably deserve medals for that.”

     Meallán barks, and Hawke resumes petting the mabari, this time scratching under his chin. “Of course that includes you, boy. You were the one who fished Father out of the farm pond when he fell through the ice that one winter.”

     “Do I even want to know what he was doing on the ice in the first place?”

     “Trying to go skating. What else?” Hawke replies, as if this is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

     Fenris blinks back at him. “Come again?”

     Hawke merely shrugs. “Hey, you’re the one who allegedly choreographs dance routines while sashaying back and forth across that big, empty mansion when no one’s watching. I try not to judge.”

     Fenris chuckles in spite of himself, and Meallán’s ears perk up at the sound. “That is precisely why I must be ever vigilant,” Fenris says. “You never know when someone might be watching, and I cannot afford to be seen prancing about the mansion. The dwarf would have a field day.”

     With a grave nod, Hawke adds, “Indeed he would. And he’d no doubt embellish the tale until you were ‘allegedly’ seen leading a reel through the streets of Hightown under a full moon, with darkspawn for dancing partners.”

     Fenris pantomimes a wary glance over each shoulder, performing a paranoid perimeter check for dwarven intruders or elven urchin spies.

     Hawke plays along, scanning the first floor of the estate for anything suspicious. “We should be safe in here, I think. Meallán rules his domain with an iron fist…er, paw,” he adds in a conspiratorial whisper. Then he leans back and casts a sidelong glance at Fenris. “And poison-tipped daggers or no, if I’ve got both you _and_ Meallán watching my back, then I reckon I have precious little to fear.”

     “Pride comes before a fall, Hawke,” Fenris warns, but the smile tugging at the corners of his lips belies his words. “If you are so intent on being foolhardy, then I have every reason to be cautious. I believe that grants me ample license to continue looking over my shoulder whenever I see fit.”

     “Oh, is that so?” There is laughter in Hawke’s voice, a challenge in his eyes, even as he attempts to make his next remark sound less deviously calculated and more casually offhand. “Then—and to be clear, we’re speaking purely hypothetically, of course—what might it take to regain your attention?”

     Fenris pauses to consider the question, weighing his options with all the gravitas of a scholar preparing to defend his thesis. “I venture a kiss might do the trick,” he finally concludes.

     And Hawke, ever the industrious, progressive thinker, proceeds to test Fenris’s hypothesis on the spot.

\- - -

     The following day, it is business as usual up to and including the point at which they find themselves mopping the grubby ground of a Lowtown back alley with a swarm of thieves either daring or mental enough to attempt an ambush on the Champion and his companions. When the fight is done and the thieves’ still-warm blood is pooling in the dirt at their feet, Fenris instinctively glances over his shoulder to confirm that no reinforcements are lurking in the shadows of the alley or above them on the rooftops.

     Despite the adrenaline thrumming in his blood in the wake of the fight, Fenris’s brain requires a full three seconds to process the fact that Hawke has closed the distance between them in a heartbeat and is now kissing him full on the lips. In the middle of the city, in broad daylight, in plain view of anyone who cares to look.

     In his peripheral vision, Fenris can see Anders gaping at them in abject horror and Varric giddily jotting down notes in the journal he uses to record inspiration for his novels.

     Only then does Fenris think back to the previous night and realize he really ought to have chosen his words more carefully.


End file.
